Perfect Circle
by UglyTruth
Summary: O's relationship with Ben and Chon in all its beautiful complexity.
1. Chapter 1

_**Perfect Circle**_

It is never a struggle between them in finding the right balance. They don't need to remind themselves to exhibit equal affection to another. Nobody ever feels left out because they all know, there would be no life without the others. Existence, yes. But not life. Simple as that.

She sees it every time she's with them and yet only an observer. Its days when they all lounge on the patio or down at the beach and she watches them when they let themselves go in the summer heat. She sees it in the way Chon's body isn't taught with tension when his best friend is beside him. It's obvious in the way that Ben tilts his head slightly in the other man's direction every now and again, as if making sure that the solid presence is still there.

She doesn't try to hide her smile because it gives her as much joy to see them living off each other as much as she finds true happiness with the both of them. Moments like these, where the mutual fondness is graspable in the tiniest signs, she wishes their lives could remain this way eternally. Sometimes she has honest faith in that daydream.

But because she knows, deep down, that life always changes and that she may not always have this privilege of being with them, she just turns back to the sun and closes her eyes. Her fingers then always seem to drift to the butterflies on her skin, touching the colour and imagining that they are three butterflies themselves, fleeting but beautiful creatures in a harsh world.

O knows she asks much of her life but since she met the two, she can't imagine staying out of their organized chaos. Such polar opposites but they make everything work, they never stray from another too long and they are always honest with another. None of the men she's met before fostered such a fascinating relationship.

She thinks that's what drew her to them in the first place. This magnetism they exude, both individual and together, is undeniable. It's in Ben's calm, loving nature and Chon's protective energy and she can't get enough of them. She's not always quite sure what it is that she gives them in return but they embrace her as though she's something indefinitely precious.

It's beautiful that feeling. It's one she hasn't felt much in her early life and she thirsts for it. Not worship but recognition. Not facades but heartfelt love. And they do love her, as much as she loves them. Who knows when it started but it's right and she won't give it up for anything. Not for all the dope in the world.

So when she finds herself in Ben's arms on the hand-woven rug he's brought back from Africa, his hands caressing her skin and his name gasping from her lips, the same thoughts run through her head as when she is up against the wall with Chon possessing her body in wild abandon and her hands raking over his back. She's the lucky one here. So incredibly lucky to have found her way into a relationship she would never dare to destroy and rather walk away than cause them pain. They are her everything.

Some evenings they might be lying in another's arms, high and content, and she can never pinpoint who starts it, but they end up in conversations each of them prefers to avoid. They talk about uncertain futures, about dangers and fears, maybe even long-buried secrets. She doesn't always like the outcomes.

There are times when Chon is stone silent if the subject strikes a nerve and he might rage or leave the room. The air always feels colder then but they don't follow him, knowing that part is something they cannot fix, forever caught in his scars. There's other times when Ben speaks of so much sorrow and hardship in the world that they all feel the guilt settle into their bodies, rethinking their own lives. And sometimes she talks of home, of memories that hurt less and less the more she speaks about them, and they soak up her words and shoulder her pain with her.

Those thoughts are gone in the mornings though, when one of them will wake the others with breakfast prepared. Most of the time it's her but they've surprised her time and time again. They laugh and share glances and keep on enjoying another's company in the way they have for so long.

Should anyone ever ask to choose, she knows she'd have to walk away from both. There is no other option but the two. Maybe she is selfish and conceited for wanting two men in her life but she knows that nobody understands. Nobody can because they don't have the bond that she has. It's a different kind of love that they believe in and she can't see anything wrong with that.

She's never felt pressure, jealousy or constricted with them. It's giving and taking in measures that decide themselves. There's never a kiss too many or a touch to little. Sometimes O thinks about crazy things like fate and destiny and wonders if this was meant to be. She was never blessed with the easy road but she still always made the most of it. These guys are no different; they spare her the torture of choosing a path.

She laughs at those who declare relationships like these doomed to fail because it's really not a hopeless love triangle they have here. It's a perfect circle.


	2. Chapter 2

What is a savage, really? To be brutal, vicious, fierce. Somebody with no restraint. If he had to categorize someone using that word, it might be Chon. But the guy is so full of layers and there is a certain savagery within those layers, that even someone as close as Ben can't understand. He's not like that, although he does a good job of pretending. To some extent, it's inevitable, being in this business.

Ben isn't as complex as he likes to make the world believe. He's travelled, he's seen what exists around him and still he finds there's too much out there that still waits to be discovered. There's pain and hardship and he knows, when it all comes down to it, he's only a small fish in a big ocean. That doesn't stop him from trying to make it right.

Sensitivity is not a weakness. He has tried to convince Chon of that often enough but the man's experiences tell him otherwise. You can't always heal what's damaged. Not that Ben cares about changing Chon.

The guy is his everything, his brother, best friend, the one he shares all he cares about with. He just wishes he could accept his emotional side, because Ben knows it is there. His best friend just refuses to let it get a solid grip.

He has let people down in his life and maybe it is an irrational urge or he is honestly as good-hearted as others make him out to be, but he finds solace in charity. Whoever thought up the system, the one that America clings to like a lifeline - laissez-faire, everyone to their own and all that bullshit, has obviously not looked at places like Africa.

People need help. And those who have the resources should feel obliged to help. Not enough of them realize how much it can give oneself to be giving to others. It's like with plants, with enough love and attention, they grow to reflect exactly what you give to them.

As a kid, he daydreamed about becoming a gardener, the kind that creates landscapes for royalty and has the most exotic plants at hand. Reality blessed him with even more. It introduced him to the greenery that breeds the mind-blowing sensations and money to practically swim in.

Sometimes he thinks back to the times in college, when he and Chon were full of crazy ideas. Insane plans for the future, the majority actually legal. But Chon has been in some of the darkest places a man can go and Ben let his idealism go soon enough. To get what you want, you beat the system with its own methods. Marijuana is illegal and the money they get from it is certainly just as shady. But he wasn't blessed with intellect for nothing. Outsmarting authorities doesn't feel as dangerous as it should with Chon beside him.

He's not in the drugs for the cash but for the art of it. Still, as his practical friend reminds him, it's money that makes the world go round in the end. Ben doesn't try to dispute that because it material terms, it is true. But when they're both lighting up as dawn breaks over Laguna, he likes to think his partner in crime understands the way he really feels about what they're doing here.

Ben knows O truly appreciates what he's doing. Never mind that she's been hooked far longer than he has. She's a lover too. She embraces emotions while being able to keep a distant eye on things. If he hadn't already had Chon as his ideal counterpart, he thinks she could have been a soulmate. He's come to see it doesn't work that way.

Chon is brutally honest in the way he lives, speaks, even in the manner he looks at people. Ben can read his movements as though they were his own by now. No thinking involved. O is more of a dreamer and a living, breathing mystery to him. He still can't quite place his finger on the moment they all became so entwined. Never mind when she walked into their lives.

He sees love, not just affection, when he looks at their relationship. It's a different love from the one that shines back at him from a starving girl's eyes, when he provides food. It's different from a young man's face when Ben gives him the opportunity for an education. Sometimes it overwhelms the love he feels for the world, for being alive even.

Before meeting O, he'd never thought about the concept of polyamory. At some point in his life, he did believe that there was a single person to be destined for. He enjoys the change of heart he's had and comes to think it's something he should have known all along. They all have something the other craves. There can never be a single soul that matches another as well as they do in their constellation. They've formed a perfect circle, where somehow, each of them gives and takes, as they need.


	3. Chapter 3

Chon doesn't remember a time when nightmares didn't plague him. Three trips into the most dangerous, war-stricken territories in the world will do that to a man.

There's some guys that go to therapy, others that go crazy and some even who can't handle it and pull the trigger on themselves. He's not really in any of those categories. If he's honest with himself, he doesn't know how he deals with it.

Maybe it's because he's grown a talent for building up the bad parts inside himself. It's not a place he recommends anybody to take a walk in. There's anger that comes up some days and he does his best to channel it into other things. Calm on the outside, raging within. Anything physical is a welcome distraction. Hard swims, hard running, hard sex, he takes it all and still, the past doesn't go away.

Some days, he feels the irrational need to pick up a weapon and go on a hunt. He doesn't, of course, instead takes apart his guns and reassembles them with practiced fingers. He's not a thinker though, when he gets pensive, the ugly things come back and he needs the action to keep them away. Other days, there's this absolute calm inside him, when he has clarity about what life is truly about and where they're all headed.

It's Ben that keeps him more grounded than any psychiatrist could. They could practically be polar opposites but somehow, in the years they've known each other, the bond they've developed goes beyond their differences. There's understanding. Sure, Ben can't ever understand what the army days were like. He's smart enough not to pretend to know what it is like either. But he doesn't need to in order to be his best friend.

Chon is a soldier of misfortune but together with Ben, he's built himself an existence of complete fortune. Maybe it was luck that brought them together but in the end, it's the drugs that make them last. Where his partner is the genius behind the business, he is the guy that keeps it running and they make it work.

It's better than good. They're in the middle of living the American dream.

It's a crass difference to his previous life in the midst of sweat and bombs. Where blood and empty faces haunt him in his sleep, the day is filled with sea, sunshine and cash. Above all, the weed. He tells O what he's learnt as a SEAL, that drugs are a rational response to insanity. She laughs and says it must be true. It's not such a strange option, considering that he is damaged enough to fall into insanity.

She is something he didn't expect to happen. At least not to him. She's the kind of girl that deserves Ben, not someone like him. Yet, she has eyes for them both and although he fits the possessive type like a glove, he finds he doesn't mind the three-way arrangement they land in. If there's anybody he would share with, it is his partner in crime. She's his as much as she's Ben's, all the while joining their lifestyle by her own choice.

Beautiful, loyal O has an empathy that floors him. He feels it in her every gesture, in each touch on his face, in her gasps when they have sex. It makes him forget the screams in his head. The young woman is easily one of the best things in his life. Simply the fact that she puts up with his lack of emotional input draws him to her. Ben's the guy that sweet-talks and gets vulnerable; he's long since stopped showing feelings. Still, she doesn't turn away.

Between the three of them, they've established roles. If they were senses, he'd be the eyes and ears. He's constantly paying attention to surroundings, to the people they deal with and most importantly, watching the web of enemies very closely. Ben would be the taste and smell, picking up on the subtleties in their goods, savouring what life throws his way. O is what connects everything; she's the physical and emotional magnet that pulls them toward another. She is the touch they need to become whole. It would be a crime to break their perfect circle.

His own touch is a double-edged sword to him. He can bring pleasure but he is an expert on pain. Chon has killed and he's not as afraid of death as he used to be. He's numb. But being unafraid for himself doesn't mean he's not afraid of death taking those important to him.

Human life in the field is worth little; there will always be more men to send. You're just a face in a uniform. But there are those, whose faces would be etched into his mind for the rest of his days, if they died under his watch.

Many days, he catches himself checking that Ben and O are close. It's a force of habit from the field but he needs that reassurance. Look out for your loved ones. They slip away too easily if you avert your gaze. With Ben nearby, focus on work and be honest. With O beside him, he is in control as much as he can let go. Screw the war, he thinks, screw the past. It's different now and he would go to all ends to keep it the way it is, right here, right now.


End file.
